Hey,

I was wondering if anyone has wheel spacers on their saturn, cuz im trying to get rid of that ugly wheel gap. I was thinking about getting some hubcentric spacers for my SC2. I found some on this site http://www.ichibausa.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=882 and i wanted to know if anyone heard anything good/bad about this product and is it worth the money. I was thinking between getting spacers and some 17x8 wheels it would make the car look better. Your thoughts???

 

A wheel spacer can induce a problem. The spacer itself wants to be good enough to physically mount a wheel on the hub so that it is properly centered. And most of them do. As it is generally used to make wheels that do not have proper back spacing as part of their design they need to be strong enough to not break. Why would they break? The wheel loading on the lug nuts can be different applying leverage action to them and to the spacer itself aggravated by the weight of the car and how it is driven and the roads it is driven on. In most cases that is taken into design of the spacer and generally if something is not exactly on the money it does not overload the spacer or the lug nuts. As the spacer is being used to put wheels and tires not designed for the car on to the car loading of wheel bearings can be come a problem. But in general it is not going to be one. Aluminum spacers are not as strong a Steel ones. That also is not generally a problem. But as in the others it can be. What you are asking is can you do this with out causing a problem. And the answer is not as easy to say because everything you are asking is a complex modification using generic parts to adapt thing to do something that the car and the wheel is not designed for.

That said, I am going to use aluminum spacers that are about almost 3 inches to adapt 10 inch wide 19 inch wheels (the back spacer being slightly shorter than the front ones) to the 1976 car I am building with a wanna be corvette engine installed in it where the original design used 5 and 1/2 inch wide 14 inch wheels. The spacers were picked to keep the huge tires involved from not running into suspension components.
And I am not going to worry about any of those things I mentioned as potential problems. And!!! The are about $35.00 cheaper per set of two than the ones you refer to.

 

ok then, this is some useful information. Ive just heard people say that the actual spacer can break if its not good quality, and i just didnt wanna run into that problem while driving down the freeway. Im still undecided if i want to get a pair. Depending on the rims, and if they are already wide enough, i might not even need spacers at all. But all this wont happen for a few months from now. Im still saving up for it

 

I think a good quality spacer will perform correctly if the car is driven sanely and that is up to you. Pretending you are a member of the Dukes of Hazard and driving way over your head will probably lead to breakage. A Saturn is not a heavy car and not prone to being abused generally. A Pick up truck with mudder tires and some one with more money than brains driving it is prone to breaking things.
Spacers inserted between the hub or rotor and the wheel and using stock lug nuts is prone to breaking I think, that would be thin. Thick ones with built in lug nots probably work well and if made of steel are probably as close to bullet proof as you can get. How ever as they are a compromise, they can be broken through abuse.

 

OK i should be fine then, because i just cruise with my car and dont really push it hard. Cant afford to break anything since i havent even had the car for a year yet, but i want it more for the look than anything else. I saw a picture of a 95' SC2 with spacers and nice sporty rims and i though it looked really cool. Considering that the SC2 isnt really a sports car you cant really do anything for performance, (maybe an exhaust, cold air intake, and suspension) i figured why not make it look nice at least

 

You pointed out a set of spacers that should be pretty good ones.I bought mine from a different source and they are very wide and purchased for the same reason.To let me mount a set of really great Mustang Cobra wheels I picked up complete with P235-35-19's on a car for basically the same reason cosmetics.

Wheel offset is important to try to match the center line of the Wheel Tire combination with the center line of the original tires. That is important on the front wheels that steer in that if the pivot point is matched as close as possible then things like bump steer and excessive loading becomes a non-issue. At least it minimizes them that with care they are not a problem. The problem becomes an issue when people go over board with it. And example of that is low riders with the wheels sticking out the sides of a car or a truck with humongous tires on it and either is done by using wheel spacers indiscriminately. The front wheel bearings on a Saturn, at least the S car as that is the only ones I have taken apart are huge so I really don't see a practical problem. Good luck on looking good. I need to repaint mine and have the upholstry repaired again. I screwed up the paint job through ignorance when I painted it and old age and being parked out doors the sun has damaged the seats.
Oh well, it is on my round tuit list.